Trip 6 provides opportunities to visit 5 high-quality zoos: St. Louis, Kansas City, Omaha, Sedgwick County (Wichita) and Denver.

These zoos allow us to experience organisms that do not occur naturally in the United States and/or are difficult to experience without special equipment and training. Entire groups of organisms completelty lack natural representatives in the U.S., including the following:

• Mammals
  • Monotremes (Monotrermata)
  • Marsupials (7 Orders, all but one species)
  • Aardvarks (Order Tubulidentata)
  • Elephants (Order Proboscidea)
  • Hyraxes (Order Hyracoidea)
  • Elephant Shrews (Order Macroscelidea)
  • Pangolins (Order Pholidota)
  • Flying Lemurs (Order Dermoptera)
  • Tree Shrews (Order Scandentia)
  • Primates (all but humans)
• Birds
  • 6 orders of birds in Palaeognathae (Ostriches, etc.)
  • Turacos (Order Musophagiformes)
  • Parrots (Order Psittaciformes)
  • Hoatzins (Order Opisthocomiformes)
  • Hornbills (Order Bucerotiformes)
  • Mousebirds (Order Coliiformes)
  • Hoopoes (Order Upupiformes)
  • Puffbirds (Order Galbuliformes)
• Reptiles
  • Tuataras (Order Sphenodontia)
• Some fishes and invertebrates
• Some plant orders